New & Notable

Parents: Help is on the way--According to dean of administration Wayne Gass, the Mount Holyoke Day Care Center and South Hadley Child Care Association have agreed to affiliate their operations, and a lease will soon be signed. Construction has begun on a new 9,300-square-foot childcare facility behind Gorse Child Study Center. The center is scheduled to open its doors in early July 1997.

A down-to-earth subject--On October 30, associate professor of geology Lauret E. Savoy discussed her interdisciplinary course on landscapes at the annual Geological Society of America meeting in Denver. The course she teaches (at Hampshire College), Landscape and Narrative, explores the place of stories in geoscience and environmental education by considering the ways in which humans have shaped and responded to images and ideas of the natural landscapes and environments of North America. With a special focus on the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Southwestern deserts, Savoy's approach includes a historical review and comparison of earth and environmental images and ideas in scientific and literary texts, journals and diaries, visual records (such as maps, photographs, or paintings), and the oral tradition.

Another gender gap--Eugenia Herbert, E. Nevius Rodman Professor of History, recently spoke at a conference of feminist scholars in Clermont-Ferrand, France. She discussed "the anomaly that, in Africa, pottery making and metallurgy use comparable techniques and are equally important in all aspects of society and history, but potters do not play the same public roles as smiths, an asymmetry that seems pretty clearly related to the fact that potters are predominantly women and smiths exclusively men." She was one of two American scholars who spoke at the conference.

What's new with you?--Send news for "New & Notable" to Emily Weir, Office of Communications, or email eweir@mtholyoke.edu.